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Friday, 27 June 2014

Hua Ting at the Orchard Hotel is another old warhorse of the Singapore restaurant industry. 22 years old this year, it has amassed so many World Gourmet Summit Awards of Excellence and other assorted paraphernalia that I don't think it even bothers displaying them anymore. My friend M recently hosted a banquet at Hua Ting to celebrate his 50th birthday, so it was a great chance to re-acquaint myself with an old favourite.

Friday, 20 June 2014

Whatever your views on Singapore politics, you cannot deny that the members of the ruling People's Action Party have excellent taste when it comes to food. Former Prime Minister and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew is apparently a big fan of Les Amis (which also happens to be one of my favourite restaurants), and I have seen a senior cabinet minister or two there on my visits. Non-Minister MPs and their grassroots leaders set their sights correspondingly lower, and I once read that the local MPs around the Balestier / Lavender / Little India area liked to frequent Ah Lam's Abalone Noodles, at the corner of Balestier and Race Course Roads.

Thursday, 12 June 2014

I received an email from Bistecca's GM Craig Hemmings a few weeks back, asking if I wouldn't mind listing Bistecca on my BYO Restaurants directory. He mentioned something about Sydney, which must have triggered some memories from years past because his name sounded very familiar. Surely enough, it was the same Craig Hemmings who was previously GM at Quay and Guillaume at Bennelong, two of Sydney's finest restaurants.